NP Young Germans

[Otto]

Young Germans Ask: Thanks for What?
By NINA BERNSTEIN

"The idea that we have to be grateful to the Americans - why?" (...) "We
have financed the gulf war. Why should we be grateful? Thirty thousand
refugees have been bombed out in Dresden, so we have to be grateful? Why?"
(...) documentaries shown almost nightly on German television in recent
months are part of a lengthy national re-examination of the Allied air war.
(...) The ritual evocation of America's role in World War II, instead of
instilling gratitude, may reinforce a stereotype of a trigger-happy United
States (...)

In contrast, a fondly comic view of East Germany is now prevalent in popular
culture. The latest box office hit is "Goodbye, Lenin," [highly recommended,
otto] a bittersweet comedy about a loyal son trying to recreate an East
German life for his dying mother, as her society crumbles under a flood of
western goods and Deutsche marks.

In the east, teenagers' cynicism is fueled by their parents' disappointment
with reunification. (...) capitalism didn't win (...) Communism lost. Now
capitalism is failing, too. (...) Next, the students were going on a school
field trip to learn more about America. They were off to see "Bowling for
Columbine," the biting documentary by Michael Moore about paranoid,
gun-loving, dangerously manipulated Americans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/weekinreview/09BERN.html

In my opinion a fair and balanced article with some true observations and a
correct report about some different actual German moods & opinions, as I
observe it too, thus not necessarily limited to East Germany.

Otto

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